Wednesday night the Jewish festival of Sukkot starts. During this 8-day festival we eat all of our meals outdoors in a temporary hut called a sukkah, which most families build in their back yard. As the chilly fall weather rolls in here in the Northeast, we’re brainstorming what to wear that is tznius, sufficiently dressy yet appropriate for the outdoors. Although the first two and last two days of this festival are celebrated as especially holy days, where we dress up in our best clothing and everyone attends synagogue, the middle days in between are more casual. We call this period “Chol HaMoed.” We often spend it eating meals at other peoples’ houses in their sukkahs. This is our first time playing around with Polyvore and we thought we’d make our first set a Chol HaMoed outfit – Warm enough for the outdoors, dressy enough for going to dinner at a friend’s house, and casual enough to not feel uncomfortable trudging around on someone’s lawn. This outfit celebrates the arrival of weather that’s cool enough to pull out corduroy, slouchy knit berets, and tall boots from your winter clothes stash. It’s so much easier to be tznius when the weather cools down!

Note: Don’t be misled by the fact that some of these clothing items are expensive! I would never pay $290 for a layering shirt. I was just using whatever popped up on Polyvore that caught my fancy. Similar items are available for any budget (but I do encourage a splurge on quality boots!)

Shade Clothing is having an “Everything Must Go” liquidation because their stores and website are closing. Sad news for those who love their clothing, which caters to Latter Day Saints’ (Mormon) modesty standards but is also useful to other modest dressers who often enjoy their layering basics. You can find lots of great deals on their sale page. Everything on the site appears to be marked down. And if you’re in Pleasant Grove, Utah? Stop by their ongoing warehouse liquidation sale.

Sad about Shade’s closing? Well, according to this letter (PDF), Shade may be… um… resurrected at some point in the future.

Although I’m a religious Jew, some of my favorite modest clothing comes from Muslim websites. I love the floor-length skirts, tailored tunics, and colorful fabrics I find on sites geared towards modest Muslimahs. I just came across the website of Taqwa Iman, and fell in love with some of the items. These are from their summer line but there’s no such thing as “seasonally inappropriate” when you wear layers most of the year ’round, so I’m posting them anyway. They’re out of some of the sizes but this will give you a good sense of what kind of gorgeous clothing to keep your eye out for when they post their new lines. It looks like their whole summer line is on sale at their site right now, and there are a lot of coupon codes available as well. Here are a few of my favorites:

They are currently offering the following coupon codes:
-$5.00 OFF Any Order / Product (Coupon Code ‘Take 5’)
-$10.00 OFF Any Order of $75 or more (Coupon Code ‘Take 10’)
-$15.00 OFF Any Order of $100 or more (Coupon Code ‘Take 15’)
-$25.00 OFF Any Order of $150 or more (Coupon Code ‘Take 25’)
-FREE U.S. SHIPPING OFF Any Order of $75 or more (Coupon Code ‘USFREESHIP’)

We know we’re not the only ones who breathe a sigh of relief when we discover that there is a highly popular clothing item that is currently in style and widely available in all the stores… and also just so happens to be modest! This is a rare event and means modest fashionistas won’t be hunting high and low for affordable modest clothing this season. Last summer it was maxi skirts and maxi dresses. This season it’s plaid tunics. We think these shirts look like someone took a lumberjack’s plaid flannel shirt and snipped and stitched until it became a distinctly feminine clothing item. Very cute, if worn right. On campus we’ve seen these shirts on both Orthodox Jewish girls and Muslim hijabis, not just the secular students who have an unfortunate tendency to wear them with the horror known as “jeggings.” Plaid tunics can look great with denim skirts of any length, wide-leg jeans, or even cotton maxi skirts. They can be worn belted or loose. Most plaid tunics we’ve seen tend to cover the upper arm (and often the elbow) and conceal the hips, which make them a modest favorite. Some button all the way up the neck, but those that don’t can easily be layered over a camisole, t-shirt or layering shell. Here are a few that are available for online purchase:

The cosmetics, skincare and fashion company mark. is known for their high-quality fragrance-free skincare line and for their makeup. However, they also sell clothing and accessories. I have friends who don’t even wear makeup but like to order their extremely inexpensive purses, for instance. Right now the mark. store has some items listed that are of interest to modest dressers.

I really like this hat a lot, and intend to order it. It looks like it might even have enough room in it to put some of my hair up inside. But even if it doesn’t, it’s a great style for me. I like to wear women’s clothing that looks more like “menswear” and this fits with that look.

I’m posting these scarves here because from the moment I saw them I envisioned them jazzing up a tichel or hijab. Click here for a picture that can give you an idea of how to wear it with a hijab. Narrow scarves can be used to add pizazz to a tichel/headscarf and to help keep it from slipping! To give you a sense of how scarves like this can be used with tichels and other headwraps, here is a picture of a lacy narrow scarf used to accessorize and secure a Style Underground tichel. Of course, they can also just be worn as headbands or… wait for it… scarves!

The neck on this shirt is a little too low for me, as I prefer to cover my collarbone. However, I love the elbow-length sleeves that are in style this year, and I think these shirts are so lovely I decided to post them for those of you who are okay with your collarbone showing. These shirts look like they cover all of one’s cleavage, but expose some of the upper chest. You’ll look like a ballerina!

Right now you can get FREE SHIPPING for a limited time if you place an order of $25 or more. Enter MARKFS25 at checkout.

Welcome to Empowered Modesty: Clothing That Leaves Something to the Imagination. This is a style blog dedicated to sharing style ideas and sources for affordable, real-life modest clothing for real-life women with real-life bodies! What does the “empowered” part of the blog title mean? It means that we focus on women making choices about covering our bodies based on our own power and agency to make choices as women, rather than just on “following the rules”. Even though we are mostly faithful, religious women whose modesty choices are informed by religious requirements, we can also view our modest fashion choices as a way of being empowered modern women who deserve to be seen as more than just our bodies.

This blog focuses on clothing that makes us feel empowered and attractive while “leaving something to the imagination” by not being revealing. We believe that clothing needn’t be high fashion or frumpy to be modest and stylish. This blog is for you, whether you adhere to Jewish tzniut guidelines, Islamic modesty laws, or other religious modesty requirements… or you dress modestly for personal, feminist, medical or political reasons. There are as many reasons to dress modestly as there are people. We will include everything from hijabs (Muslim headscarves) to long skirts to pants, so there’s something for everyone. Welcome! Don’t hesitate to drop us a line if you have ideas to share.